Perry Saturn says the Moppy gimmick was a punishment from WWE for the Mike Bell incident, and that the complete absence of creative direction is what proves it to him. Saturn explained the origin of the storyline on the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
The gimmick had Saturn fall in love with a mop after taking repeated blows to the head on screen, a storyline concussion that followed the real incident with Bell. That match was taped for Jakked and Metal in May 2001. Bell, an enhancement talent, botched a snapmare arm drag that dropped Saturn on his head, and Saturn retaliated with a legitimate beating, throwing Bell out of the ring and into the ringside steps before Terri Runnels calmed him down. Neither man was seriously hurt and both finished the match as booked. Saturn has acknowledged in past interviews that he lost his temper and was in the wrong, and that he took heat from Vince McMahon over it. Bell died in December 2008 at 37.
Saturn said the pitch didn’t come from creative directly.
“Pat Patterson thought I should marry a plunger, so that’s what he pitched, and somehow the plunger got turned into the mop,” Saturn said. “And the whole idea was I did that because I got hit in the head, which is what happened with Mike Bell, and this was my punishment. And I can prove it was a punishment because they never gave me any direction.”
Saturn said the company had Paul Heyman present the idea to him, and he believes they expected him to walk out over it.
“They didn’t pitch it to me. They had Paulie pitch it to me because I’m close with Paulie, and I’m pretty sure they assumed I was going to quit, and I was going to,” Saturn said. “I go, Paulie, I’m not going to do that. I go, I’m going to look like a f***ing idiot.”
Saturn said Heyman told him the only way out was to make it work.
“He goes, you have no choice. You have to do it, and I go, I can’t do it. I’ll be fed. He goes, you’ll be fed if you don’t do it. I go, so I’m fed either way then. So I’ll just go home. He goes, you won’t be fed if you get it over,” Saturn said.
That advice is what kept him in it, Saturn said, and everything the character became was his own invention.
“They never gave me any direction or anything,” Saturn said. “I came up with all that s*** on my own.”
Saturn pointed to Castaway as his reference point, treating the mop the way Tom Hanks’ character treated the volleyball. He also said the Saturnisms, the nonsensical lines he delivered before his “you’re welcome” catchphrase, came from scripts he was handed, and that he built the delivery himself after copying the cadence of a character he’d seen in a movie.
Saturn said he was miserable throughout the run.
“Every day I wanted to quit and every day I thought about it, but I kept hearing Paulie say, not if you get it over,” he said.
It did get over, Saturn said, and he credits Patterson with being the one to point it out to him at a show in the Meadowlands.
“He goes, you hear the people every time they come in, they chant Rocky, Rocky, Rocky,” Saturn said. “I go, they chant Rocky, so what? He goes, no, listen, you idiot. They’re chanting Moppy.”
Saturn said fans began showing up in homemade mop costumes, but that WWE never leaned into the merchandising.
“They made one Moppy T-shirt for me to wear,” Saturn said. “If they wanted it over, they would have made it. And believe me, I didn’t want it to get over, but it was getting over.”
The punishment framing is Saturn’s own, and it is not universally accepted. Former WWE head writer Brian Gewirtz has previously disputed the idea that the gimmick was retaliation for the Bell incident. Saturn’s argument rests on the lack of direction rather than on anything he says he was told directly.
The storyline ended with Moppy being destroyed in a wood chipper. Saturn reinjured his ACL in April 2002 and was released that November, and he never returned to the company.
Saturn said he still signs mops for fans at conventions, though he said he has received a cease and desist over selling them himself because WWE owns the intellectual property. He said he signs them because refusing would be unfair to fans who have a genuine attachment to the character, while being straightforward about his own view of it when he’s asked.
“But if they ask me, I tell them the truth. I was miserable and every day thought about quitting,” Saturn said.
